Korea was hit hard by the 2008 global financial crisis, with the foreign bank deleveraging channel coming prominently into play. The global financial crisis demonstrated that a sharp deleveraging can be transmitted to emerging markets through the bank lending channel to a slowdown in credit growth. The analysis finds that a sharp decline in external funding led to relatively modest decline in domestic credit by Korean banks, due to concerted policy efforts by the government in 2008. Impulse responses from a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model calibrated to Korea shows that it appears better prepared to handle such shocks relative to 2008. Indeed, Korea is much more resilient to such shocks due to the efforts by the authorities, which has led to the strengthening of external buffers, such as higher foreign exchange reserves and bilateral and multilateral currency swap arrangements.

Korea was hit hard by the 2008 global financial crisis, with the foreign bank deleveraging channel coming prominently into play. The global financial crisis demonstrated that a sharp deleveraging can be transmitted to emerging markets through the bank lending channel to a slowdown in credit growth. The analysis finds that a sharp decline in external funding led to relatively modest decline in domestic credit by Korean banks, due to concerted policy efforts by the government in 2008. Impulse responses from a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model calibrated to Korea shows that it appears better prepared to handle such shocks relative to 2008. Indeed, Korea is much more resilient to such shocks due to the efforts by the authorities, which has led to the strengthening of external buffers, such as higher foreign exchange reserves and bilateral and multilateral currency swap arrangements.

This paper examines the impact of foreign banks on the monetary policy transmission mechanism in the Korean economy during the period from 2000 to 2012, with a specific focus on the lending behavior of banks with different types of ownership. The recent global financial crisis of 2008-2009 provides a case for the first significant test for evaluating the stabilizing/destabilizing role of foreign banks in an emerging Asian economy, Korea, after experiencing a steady increase in foreign ownership in its banking sector. Using the bank-level panel data of the banking system in Korea, we present consistent evidence on the buffering impact that the foreign banks on the effectiveness of the monetary policy transmission mechanism in Korea from the bank-lending channel perspective during the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. Our further analyses show that this buffering effect is mostly driven by foreign bank branches whose parent banks are located in the U.S. One of the underlying reasons for the buffering effect by foreign bank branches including U.S. bank branches is the existence of internal capital markets operated by multinational banks to overcome capital market frictions faced when the foreign banks finance their loans. Our findings suggest an important policy implication for policy-makers as well as banking regulators in Korea that, when the Bank of Korea conducts monetary policies -- expansionary or contractionary -- during crisis periods to bail them out from the credit crunch and spillover effects of financial shocks from abroad, it must take into account the buffering or hampering effects of foreign banks on the effectiveness of the monetary policy transmission mechanism.

This paper examines the impact of foreign banks on the monetary policy transmission mechanism in the Korean economy during the period from 2000 to 2012, with a specific focus on the lending behavior by banks with different types of ownership. Using the bank-level panel data of the banking system in Korea, we present consistent evidence on the buffering and hampering impact of foreign banks, especially foreign bank branches, on the effectiveness of the monetary policy transmission mechanism in Korea from the bank-lending channel perspective during the period of the global financial crisis of 2008-9.

This paper examines the impact of foreign banks on the monetary policy transmission mechanism in the Korean economy during the period from 2000 to 2012, with a specific focus on the lending behavior by banks with different types of ownership. Using the bank-level panel data of the banking system in Korea, we present consistent evidence on the buffering impact of foreign banks, especially foreign bank branches including American bank branches, on the effectiveness of the monetary policy transmission mechanism in Korea from the bank-lending channel perspective during the period of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. Findings of this paper suggest that foreign bank branches reduced their lending when the Bank of Korea lowered its base rate substantially to conduct expansionary monetary policy during the global financial crisis period. One of the underlying reasons for this buffering effect by foreign branches is the existence of internal capital markets operated by multinational banks to overcome capital market frictions faced when the foreign banks finance their loans.